


Pax Hydra

by emilyenrose



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Pragmatic Idealism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-20
Updated: 2014-09-20
Packaged: 2018-02-18 03:34:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2333753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emilyenrose/pseuds/emilyenrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peace is a responsibility.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pax Hydra

**Author's Note:**

> I blame young Robert Redford's all-American good looks.

The man stumbles into the embassy by an upper floor window in the middle of the night. His clothes are dark and stiff with blood, some of it his, but nothing drips onto the beige institutional carpet of the junior diplomat’s bedroom he’s broken into.

Alexander Pierce is still awake. He is sitting up in bed, trying to read a Russian novel in the original language: he makes a point of this sort of thing. The year is 1965 - three years since the missile crisis. He is twenty-eight years old. The man who stumbles into his bedroom covered in blood is someone he has only seen twice before, both times at a distance.

Pierce is high in the internal hierarchy of the organization (it is known, at this time, as just  _the organization_ ), especially for his age. He is high enough, for example, to know what the organization’s original name was. He is high enough to know what the Winter Soldier is, and what he is for.

The Winter Soldier stands by the window looking at Pierce, and Pierce looks back at him, and does not know why he is there. If he has come to kill - but there is no reason for him to have come to kill -

The soldier lifts his hands to his muzzle and removes it. He drops it on the floor, and it lies there unregarded. This, Pierce knows, is a bad sign. He has met the unpleasant little European scientist responsible for the project, and heard him earnestly assuring more superior members of the organization that it is quite impossible for the Soldier to make independent choices.  _He will not take off the mask unless ordered to do so_.

"There you are," the soldier says. His bare face is haggard; his voice is cracked and thready. "Been looking for you everywhere."

"Here I am," says Pierce carefully. He puts down the book. He does not try to get out of bed. He harbors no illusions about his chances of escaping if the soldier decides to kill him.

"I -" A pause. The soldier stands there, frowning.

"Your mission?" Pierce says eventually. It’s a risk, but simply sitting there while the organization’s most dangerous weapon stands confused seems like a worse one. He knows that the soldier is programmed to report. He has no idea why he is even out of storage. He is not currently high enough in the organization to know.

"Yeah," the soldier says. "My mission. Mission accomplished, sir. I did it." He looks down at himself, blood-soaked. "I did it," he says again, and he -

 _lunges_ , Pierce thinks for a second, but that’s not it at all; he stumbles across the room, collapses onto the bed where Pierce is sitting, knocking the Russian novel over so that the book flips and the page is lost, and he seizes hold of Pierce’s hand in both of his. Pierce does not resist it, forces himself not to react at all. After a moment the soldier lowers his head so that his forehead is pressed to the back of Pierce’s hand. Pierce looks down at the top of his dark head, the bloodstains now spreading on the white bedsheets. “I did it,” the soldier murmurs again. “I - God, Steve, will this war ever, ever be over?”

Pierce looks down at the living weapon’s dark head, the defeated line of his shoulders, and is struck by a deep and sharp pity. He is reminded all over again of why he joined the organization; he has never been more sure that he made the right choice. He puts his other hand in the soldier’s hair; when the soldier makes a desperate noise and shudders, he strokes, comforting. "It will,” he says. “I promise, it will. One day there will be no more war, and you won’t need to do this anymore.”

Not this soldier, not any soldier; there will be no more need for them. Peace and power belong together; it is the responsibility of the powerful to impose peace.  _Pax Hydra_ , someday; and Bucky Barnes’ long service will be over. 

The soldier shudders again. Pierce keeps stroking his hair, ignoring the bloodstains on the sheets and the soldier’s wet face where it’s pressed against the hand he’s clinging to. They stay like that until the project team shows up to take the soldier back where he belongs. They don’t need to subdue him by force; Pierce talks to him gently, and he goes.

* * *

 

"That was quick thinking, Mr Pierce," says someone much higher up in the organisation not long afterwards. "You realized his programming had faltered?"

"When he removed his mask, sir."

"You seem to have a knack with him," says the man in the leather-backed chair. "Zola’s approach lacks subtlety. We may call on you to work with our best asset more often in future."

"Sir," says Pierce.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a [tumblr.](http://emilyenrose.tumblr.com)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Dreams](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7672636) by [AsterRoc](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsterRoc/pseuds/AsterRoc)




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